.TH SAFE_ASTERISK 8 "Jun 30th, 2005" "Asterisk" "Linux Programmer's Manual"
.SH NAME
.B safe_asterisk
\(em A wrapper to run the asterisk executable in a loop
.SH SYNOPSIS
.PP
.B safe_asterisk
.I [ asterisk_params ]

.SH DESCRIPTION
.B safe_asterisk
is a script that runs asterisk in a loop, which can be useful if you
fear asterisk may crash.

The script does not run in the background like a standard service. Rather,
it runs in its own linux virtual console (9, by default).
It also uses the option '\-c' of asterisk(8) to avoid detaching asterisk
from that terminal.

safe_asterisk also runs asterisk with unlimited core file size, and thus
asterisk will dump core in case of a crash.

To get a "picture" of console 9, from another terminal (e.g: from a
remote shell session) you can use:

  screendump 9

The init script of the Debian package should be able to run safe_asterisk
as the asterisk service, if so configured. See comments in
/etc/default/asterisk

.SH FILES
.B /tmp
.RS
safe_asterisk runs in that directory, rather than in / as usual.
.RE

.B /tmp/core
.RS
If core files were generated there, they may be
.RE

.B /etc/asterisk/startup.d
.RS
Files in this directory will be 'source'd by the safe_asterisk script before
it starts Asterisk proper, allowing them to set additional environment variables
or run any other steps that are needed for your system.
.RE

.SH BUGS
While showing the output on a console is useful, using screen(1) as
the terminal may be better.

The script does not read configuration from standard location under /etc

It uses fixed locations under /tmp , and thus may be exposed to a
symlink attacks.

.SH SEE ALSO
asterisk(8), screendump(9)

.SH "AUTHOR"
This manual page was written by Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir.cohen@xorcom.com>
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under
the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 any
later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public
License can be found in /usr/share/common\-licenses/GPL\-2.
